Compound Foundation is opening a lending market that only institutions can enter, three weeks after relaunching the protocol around institutional credit.
The Institutional Market splits Compound's liquidity in two. Whitelisted borrowers get their own collateral set, their own loan-to-value ratios and a named point of contact, which ends the arrangement where a fund and a retail wallet borrow on identical parameters. It is also the first thing to ship out of the $52 million program the Compound DAO approved in August, most of which the Foundation has not been handed yet.
The market lends USDC against ETH, wstETH, WBTC and cbBTC, and runs on Compound v3. Compound holds $1.53 billion in total value locked with $638 million borrowed against it, sixth among lending protocols on DefiLlama and up 23% over 30 days. Ethereum carries $1.42 billion of that, or 93%. COMP trades at $20.88, up 9% over seven days, for a market cap of $212 million.
"With today's Institutional Market launch, we are taking the first step toward building infrastructure to meet institutional client demands, including better capital efficiency, clearly defined risk, and a much higher standard of service," said Aaron Schnarch, executive director of Compound Foundation. "We are encouraged by the market demand, and look forward to launching additional capabilities over the coming months."
